UCC Document Community

Just went through something similar last month. Had 3 UCC-3 amendments with slightly different debtor names and spent hours trying to figure out if they were all valid. Turns out the secured party had been sloppy with their filings and 2 of the 3 amendments were technically defective due to name mismatches. We ended up requiring new UCC-1 filings before closing. Better safe than sorry when it comes to perfected security interests.

The relationship between amendments and the original filing should be clear from the filing numbers. Each UCC-3 should reference the specific filing number of the UCC-1 it's amending. If the filing number references don't match up properly, that's a red flag. Also, check if any of the amendments are actually terminations rather than true amendments - sometimes search reports categorize all UCC-3 filings together even though they serve different purposes.

This thread is super helpful. I'm dealing with a similar issue in Mississippi right now. Going to try the Certana document checker before I file to avoid the same problems.

Mississippi's UCC system definitely needs an overhaul. The fact that a comma can hold up a major commercial transaction is just absurd. Other states have figured out how to be more reasonable with name matching.

The silver lining is that your underlying security agreement is still valid. You still have contractual rights against the debtor, you just lost your perfected status against third parties. If the debtor stays current and there are no other creditors, you're still protected.

For what it's worth, three weeks isn't terrible. I've seen gaps of several months before people realized their UCC had expired. The key is getting back in as quickly as possible and hoping no one else filed during the window.

For your footnote disclosures, you'll probably need to describe the nature of the collateral, the secured debt amounts, and any significant restrictions. Keep it high-level but complete.

The bottom line is that UCC accounting meaning is really about proper disclosure of secured debt, not accounting for the security interests themselves. Focus on the economic substance of your borrowing arrangements.

One thing to watch out for is if your borrower is a subsidiary or has parent companies - sometimes the actual debtor entity is different from who you think you're lending to. Make sure you're filing against the right legal entity that actually owns the collateral.

Update: I pulled fresh organizational documents and you were all right - the legal entity name was different from what I had been using. Refiled with the correct charter name and it was accepted within 24 hours. Added the DBA information in the additional details section for search purposes. Thanks for the guidance - this could have been a real problem if we'd left the wrong name on file.